A group of black and white Sanford-area pastors united by the shooting death of Trayvon Martin reconvened Wednesday for a racial-reconciliation forum they hope will spread nationwide. They hope Sanford, which did not experience violence after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, will provide a model for other cities.

"I contend that Sanford, Florida, will be the place people will point to and say, 'These people have learned how to do it,'" said Raleigh Washington, president of the Denver-based Promise Keepers.

About 30 ministers — including pastors from Atlanta, Los Angeles and Washington — attended the forum at Charisma Media in Lake Mary with hopes of launching a national Reconciliation and Relationship Initiative. The group drafted The Sanford Declaration, which could be used for multiracial forums in other cities.

"Our real vision is to encourage this kind of dialogue all over the country," said Steve Strang, CEO of Charisma Media, who has scheduled a news conference today to announce the group's plans for the nationwide initiative.

Key to The Sanford Declaration is a commitment to form friendships, fellowships and relationships between pastors that transcend race and culture. Several of the pastors said that without the death of Trayvon Martin, they never would have become close friends with ministers of a different race.

"A horrible tragedy has brought us together, has slapped us upright and said there's a history here," said Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed in Longwood. "The inertia of history can only be interrupted by relationships."

Though some black and white pastors have been meeting regularly over lunch or breakfast, there has not been the pulpit exchange between black and white churches that was discussed nearly a year ago, Rucker said.

Hunter responded that he would like to engage in a pulpit exchange with Rucker, but the two men need to know each other better.

"There has to be this trust established. He has to know who I am, he has to know who my family is, and I have to know who he is. This takes a long time," Hunter said.

Several others echoed that the group, which calls itself Sanford Pastors Connecting, has a long way to go, but the cure to the institutional racism cited by Rucker starts within the churches themselves.

"The Gospel is the answer to racism in the individual, and the church is the answer to institutional racism," said Ron Johnson, pastor of One Church in Longwood.

Derrick Gay, pastor of Dominion International Church in Sanford, said the ministers didn't just engage in polite discussions when they met, but made true progress in genuinely understanding one another.

"There are pastors from the black and the white side I have had the opportunity to engage, and they have begun to raise very real questions as to why we don't like each other," Gay said.

Some of those in the audience remarked at how unusual it was to hear such a candid conversation about race and racism.

"I applaud you and encourage you as men of God," said Eddie Turner, who moved to Florida recently from Chicago. "Preachers in Chicago don't necessarily do this."